Vicente Fernández continued...

Everything he sang was familiar to the crowd, I recognized a lot of it as I have several of his CDs. He didn't sing some standards that I like, Guadalajara or El Tapatio which are more regional and about his home state Jalisco in the north. He did sing many that I know and love, Que te vaya bonito, Tu Camino y El Mio, Los Mandados.

All night people were handing notes to security to give to him. He'd take them and read them, never missing a note, and either hand them to the band leader or put them on a table. So, I think he sang a lot of songs by request. It looked like he didn't know before the band started playing which song was next, he would listen to the opening bars and then get a big grin and pump his fists. When he wanted to take a drink from a bottle or a hit on his cigarette, he would just hold the mike out to the crowd and they would sing for him.

Late in the night he got a huge response singing México Lindo y Querido. By now, there were a lot of pretty happy people in the crowd. The young kid who had been leaning over the railing spilling his beer and singing at the top of his lungs, leaned down, tapped me on the shoulder and said "Viva Mexico". Of course, I responded "Viva Mexico" and we had a high five. After that, he was much more careful with his beer and he patted me on the head a couple times.

Oh, I've got to tell you about the blond. At one point this gorgeous, blond girl of about 20 somehow made it past the security ringing the stage and got up on it on her knees. The security guys were making some small effort to pull her back but Vicente waved them away and walked over to her. She was sobbing and wrapped her arms around his legs. He got her to her feet, never missing a word of the song he was singing, and she then clung to him like a limpet until the security guys pulled her away. She grabbed him again around the knees and at that point the drunken boys behind me started yelling ¡Chupale! which I won't translate for you but you can ask a spanish speaker. Shades of James Brown!

At 2:30am, he finally sang the song everyone had been yelling for all evening Volver, Volver and then Don Chente left the stage. I noticed the security guy had a tight grip on the back of his belt as he went down the stairs. There was not an empty seat in the arena, we all stayed for the last note. He had started singing at 10pm and he never stopped and he never left the stage for four and a half hours.
¡Qué Hombre!

So...the concert. I'm a big fan of Vicente Fernández, I like his voice, I like his demeanor, I think he's kind of cute for an old man and he looks a lot like my father. I also like him as an example of a lot of cultural beliefs in Mexico, but I'll talk about that later.

We went back to the hotel to rest before the concert but ended up watching a weird old sci-fi movie on tv. It ended at 10pm which is when the concert started so we were late. Luckily it was only 5 or so blocks to the bull ring and got there fast in a cab.

Because we were late, the door we were supposed to use was closed. There was a young Mexican guy and his girlfriend also trying to get in that door. He was very insistent and I just kind of stood behind them to see if he would succeed. I knew if he didn't we sure wouldn't. Finally, they told him they would let him in there but that they would not let him farther on. He stormed off dragging the girlfriend and I grabbed Mimi and we tried to keep up. He passed the main entrance which is where they had told him to go and went on up the street a ways to another door. He blustered at the guard and they were let in, Mimi and I just showed our tickets too and went in right behind them. Much to our surprise, it was the backstage door and the couple went right into an RV they had parked there for performers.

Mimi and I went on into the ring and were treated like we had a back stage pass and allowed to stand near the stage. They told us that they couldn't get us to our seats until the lights came up but that they would help us as soon as they could. I didn't care, we were really close and I had a good view although Mimi's wasn't so hot. Vicente was already singing, he must have gone on right at 10pm, we arrived about 10:20. A little later, the house lights came on for a minute and a guy came and led us to another side of the ring. It was clear that we weren't going to get to our assigned seats which were up in the stands, 3 rows back. Those seats cost about $65 US and the ones down on the floor of the ring cost from $100 to $125.

So for another while we stood on the stairs next to the pit where they had the bar setup. We had a great view and a railing to lean on, I was happy there. A while later though another guy came and said to follow him. He took us along the edge of the ring and put us in a reserved row down on the field. We were about 10 rows from the stage in the high priced seats. Really nice. As Mimi said, it often pays to be late.

He was incredible! He was alone on the stage, his band was in a pit around it, and he held the crowd in his hands all night. He would occasionally stop singing and cup his hand behind his ear and hold the mike out to the crowd, everyone in that huge stadium could sing every word of his songs. The crowd was like a huge chorus, they sang with him all night.

It was very different than concerts in the US, very different. For one thing no one was searched coming in, everyone had a bottle, they sold set ups and ice along with beer. There were guys walking through the crowd selling french fries and cotton candy. The crowd yelled and cheered and raised their glasses to him and their hands in salute. Frequently a roar of "Vicente, Vicente" would go around the ring, other times they would use his nickname "Chente". I heard guys behind me yelling "Queremos Vicente" (we love you Vicente) and calling him "Papa".

He was dressed in the traditional charro suit, with silver conchos on the pants, the knotted scarf tie and ... a silver holster and pistol! The holster and gun butt were solid, engraved silver and they flashed as they caught the lights.

He sang and sang, he drank a clear liquid from plastic cups that I know wasn't water. As the night wore on, people would pass him bottles from the audience and he would carry them for a song and take a swig and pass it back. He smoked cigarettes, he talked a little more between songs as it got later, he raised his glass and said "salud" to the crowd and glasses were raised back at him from all the around the ring. With the opening bars of a song from the band, he would lean back and pump his fists, his joy in singing and his joy in the crowd was palapable.

The crowd was wonderful. There were all ages, from well dressed matrons to 20 something tough guys to 40 something professionals to cowboys of all ages. Everyone was smiling, laughing, cheering, drinking and singing along with every song. That's another difference between Mexico and the US, I can't imagine anyone that could draw a crowd this diverse in age in the US and have all of them thrilled to be there and knowing every word of every song.

Mimi and I were by no means the whitest people there but we were the only gringos that I spotted. We felt completely comfortable. We were sitting behind a row of young guys and one girl in their late teens and they were drinking steadily. Even late when they were clearly pretty loaded, they were nice, they were respectful and they were friendly. As it got later, another group of young men moved to the railing right behind and over us. They were sloppy drunk and my only complaint was when they started singing and chanting I couldn't hear what Vicente was saying between songs. I also didn't like them slopping beer on me but each time it happened they apologized.

His voice is like deep, dark velvet. So strong that he often had to move the mike out as far as his arm reached when he was really pouring it out. I love the tone of his voice, even when he is talking it is a really smooth deep sound. His stage presence is incredible, he worked the crowd like the pro he is. He is relaxed and comfortable and he makes you feel you are in a small club instead of a huge bull ring. A round stage is tough on a performer but he moved to all sides evenly without it looking contrived.

Somewhere around 1am they brought out a small table and chair and he sat for 2 or 3 songs. Even then he moved the chair all around the table, never leaving anyone behind him for long. The man is almost 70 years old, I couldn't believe his stamina.

Mimi got this great shot of a young cowboy across the arena with his son in his arms. He was singing along to the boy and holding his hand up in salute to Vicente.

...continued

Friday afternoon we were off to Mérida. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, I know, not very exciting. It was the weekend after Carnaval though and everything was booked. It was a nice room, across the street from our real estate office, had free wifi and free parking and it was walking distance to the Plaza de Toros where the Vicente Fernandez concert was Saturday night.

We got there around 8pm and Mimi decided to take a nap. She didn't wake up until the next day at noon, and then I woke her up! Well, somewhere around 1am a wedding party down the block started setting off fireworks and I went outside on the deck to watch and she woke up for about 5 minutes, but that was it. I was starving, I did walk down to the lobby bar and get a couple rum and cokes but the only food open was a sit down restaurant-buffet and I didn't feel like doing that. I scrounged around and found some gummi cherries in the suitcase and that was dinner and lunch too. I could have taken the jeep and gone out for food but it was too much hassle, it's not like I'm going to waste away!

The next day I was ready for food and the world delivered. We gagged through some of the coffee in the room and then went to the Cafe Habana in the centro. We'd enjoyed this place before and it was just as good. It's an old Cuban style coffee house with lots of men in guayaberas, business people and a table of Mexican queens listening to their mp3 phones and gossiping.

The coffee was exquisite! I ordered a lechero and it came separate, a cup of really rich, really strong espresso, a glass with hot milk - you pour them together and mmmmmm! I also had a fruit cocktail of fresh pineapple, mango, papaya and cantaloupe. Then I ordered breakfast! All this at 1pm, so civilized.

We then met up with our friends and real estate agents, Nelio and Pati. They took us to a botana bar we had not tried.

Have I told you, internet, about botanas? Oh! There are bars that serve small dishes of food constantly as long as you order drinks. Some are so-so and some, like D'Pilón, are incredible. They seem to be more common in some parts of Mexico and not so common in others, I have no idea how that works. Here in Mérida, they are common. There is a famous one here with about 6 branches, Eladio's, that also has live music and is very busy. We stopped at one of those but it was so crowded and so loud that we went on.

D'Pilón is owned by a school friend of Nelio's and is in his neighborhood. We sat down and order a round of drinks and immediately a dozen small plates were delivered.

I can't begin to remember all that was in that first round. The small tortillas with black sauce were chilmole with chicken and boiled egg on top, there was ceviche, sopa de limón, small slices of a local huge tamale called Abrazos de Reina, chicharrones in tomato sauce, small enchiladas rojas, poc chuc, potato salad, cucumbers in vinegar, sopa de albondigas, a wonderful pumpkin seed sauce that I forget the name of, and that was just the first round!

We had just eaten this huge breakfast a couple hours before and wished we were hungrier. We sat and talked for hours, had a couple rounds of drinks and the plates never stopped coming. We finally had to tell them no more and then we got the flan pie and ice cream! I am so going back there to spend a whole afternoon without eating beforehand.

It was good to spend time talking with Pati and Nelio, we are really fond of them and know they will be long time friends. We talked about anything and everything and a little about this house we are buying. We couldn't get the key this weekend so we didn't get into the house. I did tell them that my son and his wife and friends are coming to Mérida the first week in April and Nelio and Pati are excited to meet them and I'm sure they will have a good time. It will be Nelio's birthday the night before Dupre gets there and he says he will wait to party with them. Oh boy!

We went back to the hotel to take a nap before the concert at 10pm. I'll post separately about that but here's a teaser pic of the grand old man himself.

**here's the address of D'Pilón. Colonia Jesús Carranza, Calle 36 #455 X Calle 27

This norte is accompanied by some spectacular clouds. It's cold though, we're freezing. Last night I had a throw, a spare bedspread and all the blankets on my side of the bed and I was still cold. Needless to say all the fans were off and the windows closed as well.

Today we stopped at the RV on our way to Tulum so I could get some long pants and my warm jacket. I was seriously tempted to get out the flannel pj's but resisted. Tonight Mimi was walking the dogs and brought up the down comforter and our wool sweaters - I think I'll be warmer tonight.

Ok, so it is only in the mid 60'sF for all you cold weather types. But, we are acclimated to heat and 64°F is pretty darn cold.

Not cold enough to get rid of the damn mosquitoes though. In fact, they like the cool and grey. I had bug juice on my legs when we went off to Tulum but I stopped it where my shorts started. After putting on the long pants apparently while I was sitting and having lunch the fabric was close enough to one thigh that I got about 8 bites in a small area above the bug juice.

I'm a magnet for the little creeps, the itching is bad enough but they also all seem to get infected on me resulting in big holes. Plus, since it was daytime I can assume these were the type of mosquitos that carries Dengue Fever so I'm really thrilled about that too. See, all is not palm trees and tropical beaches here in paradise. Wherever you go, life follows and there are bugs lurking in every beautiful picture. Does that make you guys up in the frozen north feel any better?

Lunch was great in spite of the mosquito bites. We tried the Tulum Argentine place for the first time. I didn't really have Argentine food, I had the Lime Soup, a traditional Yucatecan dish. It was excellent and warming, I also had papas fritas provenzal which is nice way of saying french fries in Argentine chimichurri sauce... garlic, olive oil, parsley. Mimi had cream of onion soup and empanadas filled with corn and cheese, I tasted both and they were excellent as well. Next time though, full body bug juice.

Another norte is blowing here today, sun interspersed with light rain and grey. It has the tourists running back and forth, in and out of the condo below.

This is the kind of weather that the pelicans seem to really love. I wonder if the fish can't see them as well. One of my pastimes is trying to get a picture of the moment of impact when the pelicans are diving. I got quite a few today, some I even think are pretty good.

This one is not as good, the focus is a little off, but it is the moment that he hit the water. It's tough trying to figure out where they are going to dive, get the camera focused there and then follow them a little and hope you push the button at the right time.

I like this next one because it is in better focus and the water is flying from his impact.

One of the irritating things about Blogger is that in order for the words and the pictures to be in some kind of sync, I have to write a lot in between the pictures. I am kind of amazed though that my problems uploading in Blogger seem to have disappeared. It's frustrating not knowing which part of the problem is our equipment, which is Blogger, which is Hughes... most of the time it seems to be a combination and that is the hardest thing to troubleshoot.

This is the last of diving pelican pics, he's bobbed back to the surface while the water is still falling around him. We don't know if he got the fish or not.

I've got to go to the RV and look in the bird books to see what kind of pelican these are. There are some with white heads and some with dark heads. We think that is a difference between juvenile and adult but don't know which is which. I got one good picture of both types sitting in the water together.

We've spent the last couple of days lounging around and not doing much.

Rodrigo came and installed some light fixtures we bought last year in San Cristóbal. That freed up some lamps that we were using to read in bed and those had to be reassigned to other places. When a norte blows the humidity goes down, in between the rain that is. Mimi goes and gets her paint can and start doing touch ups. Those are the little details of our days.

I feed my grackles when they come and yell in the window at me. I got a picture of one of them today, he was very frustrated because there was food on his post but we were outside on the deck and he couldn't get to it.

Every day I spend a lot of time watching the ocean and the birds. Funny, I do a lot of bird watching but I'm not a Bird Watcher. I think what most people call bird watchers are more like bird counters, they seem to just want to count how many types they can see and spend very little time just watching the birds do what they do. I'd love to find some books on bird behavior, to me that's a lot more interesting than whether some little yellow bird is one type or the other.

For instance, there is one Tern that hunts in our bay all day. He dives from ridiculous heights, over and over. I can never tell when he catches something but he must be doing all right. At least once a day another Tern appears and they get into what looks like a mid air battle. I'd love to know if it is really a fight, or if it is some kind of courtship. After the aerial dance, the other Tern leaves and ours goes back to the endless dives.

El dia en que tu naciste
Nacieron todas la flores
El dia en que tu naciste
Cantaron los ruiseñores

Yes, today is my birthday and that is the first of many verses of the Mexican birthday song. Luckily for me, no one appeared at 3am outside my window to sing it to me.

What did I do on this 61st such day? Well, for one thing, I had a dentist appointment. It just shows you how unaware you can get about birthdays when you get old. I made this appointment, they clearly said the 13th of February and yet it didn't dawn on me until a couple days ago that it was on my birthday. So, off to the dentist again I went. Only to be saddened by the fact that it was not my last appointment but maybe my 3rd from the last.

Also, this birthday was on a Tuesday. Now in the US a Friday the 13th is considered unlucky and I was thrilled in my teenage rebellious way to have my 13th birthday on a Friday the 13th. But in Mexico, a Tuesday the 13th is the combination believed to be unlucky. There is a ditty in spanish that says to never start a voyage or anything else on a Tuesday the 13th. Phooie! I feel lucky to be here and enjoying such a wonderful life. When I was 20 something I fully believed I would not live to be 30, another one of those affectations of youth - "die young, stay pretty". Since I've more than doubled my anticipated life span, I'm feeling really lucky.

After the dentist, we went to the shopping center and I looked at every little thing in the store while Mimi did the laundry. These tasks both took the same amount of time. I'd been complaining that I was forgetting to buy stuff we needed because we just ran in and out of the store and if I don't go down every aisle and look at everything I don't know what I need. I don't do lists.

Oh, I forgot. First we went to my latest addiction, the fish taco place on the highway. Friends told us about it several weeks ago and now that's the only place I want to eat. Mimi hates fish but she likes their shrimp tacos so at least there is something she can eat. Still, it's definitely NOT her favorite and today she even offered it as a place for lunch without me whining and making deals! I mean these are some to die for fish tacos. They are light and really fresh and there is mayonnaise and some really hot, green habanero sauce to put on them. I ate three. Also, they are soft which was a good thing after my dentist appointment. A cold Sol cerveza and 3 fish tacos from La Floresta are a little bit of heaven.

So, then we went to the Chedraui to shop and wash clothes. It worked, I remembered the tooth paste and the light bulbs and shampoo, all the stuff I'd been forgetting because I didn't go down the right aisle. and... that was it! My big birthday. We came home and Mimi carried it ALL up the 3 flights of stairs (with a little help from our neighbor) and I only brought up the bag with the rum and the kahlua in it, the important stuff.

De las estrellas del cielo
Quisiera bajarte dos,
Una para saludarte
Y otra pa' decirte adios

Today Mimi got this close up picture of the Osprey that hunts in our bay. The 12x zoom on the new camera is paying off. She complained though that he was so fast it was hard to get a picture in focus and of course, he always seemed to be between her and the sun. Still, I think it's great.

Still having big problems uploading, I tried on and off all afternoon to upload that picture and it wouldn't go even with the FTP program. I guess when I get sick enough of dealing with this I'll take it apart. Really scares me though, I have no faith we can get it all back together again and what if the O ring falls apart? We'll never find one to replace it.

So instead, I keep taking the baggie of and spraying canned air in there. Here's a pic of the LNB with the baggie. Classy huh?

We bought a kilo of shrimp from the shrimp truck the other day. I seem to be talking about food a lot on here but frankly, it's either food or house design so enjoy the food.

They were good sized and very fresh although frozen. That's good, I don't want any shrimp that have been traveling around in the back of a truck in this heat and aren't frozen, even for 10 minutes. But they were and they were so fresh that it looked like their little eyes were moving. I managed to butcher them and peel them and de-vein them with the help of my wonderful shrimp deveining scissors. I did all this while Mimi watched a football game because if she spotted those eyeballs and the damn feelers all over the counter, she would have had peanut butter and jelly for dinner. I had to do some powerful psychological disconnecting myself to get it done but I'm pretty darn good at that. I can tell myself stories and pretend I'm somewhere else under almost any circumstances, I proved that a few weeks ago at the dentist. So there.


I added lots of garlic, butter, sliced fresh carrots - remind me to rave sometime about how carrots in Mexico taste so much better than carrots in the US - and some frozen french green beans from Trader Joe's. All this over rice - it was wonderful!

I've been having problems again with Blogger, or more like a combination of Blogger and my satellite internet connection. We had water in the lens on the sat arm and we cut the lens off and dried it out and put a bag over it. That's all good but we are right on the ocean and I think that the circuit boards or whatever is inside there are starting to corrode or rust. More specifically, the transmit part. We can surf the net and download anything but if an upload goes more than a few seconds, as in uploading a picture over Bloggers really slow software, it stalls and fails. I've started uploading the pictures myself which works most of the time, and then pointing Blogger to them. This is a kludge, especially since even the fast FTP program occasionally stalls as well. We were advised to take the whole thing apart, clean the guts and put silicone grease on the O ring and seal it back up. Not for the faint at heart or those who can't stand the idea of days without internet if something goes wrong.

Oh the Joy! We just made reservations for the weekend of the 24th in Mérida. When we were over there last week, we bought tickets to see Vicente Fernández at the bull ring that night. It will be a birthday present for me even though it's actually over a week after my birthday. When you get this old, what's a week?

We had a hard time getting rooms and ended up paying more than we wanted to. Carnaval (Mardi Gras) ends on that Thursday and I guess most people are staying through the weekend.

We went to Carnaval a few years ago with the Loose Chickens on their way to Panama. We had a great time even though I stupidly stepped off a high curb into a street drain and badly sprained my ankle. Just for the record, I did this without having had a drink.

If you ever get the chance, Carnaval in Mérida is incredible. Parades every day and night, most streets closed with bandstands on every corner and lots of booths for food and drinks. People in costume, on stilts and in their best finery. Lots of dancing, lots of music, lots of open smiles and happy faces. Mérida is one of the safest cities in Mexico or in the US for that matter. You can walk the streets in most parts of the city with no fear, late at night, during Carnaval, on a Wednesday... whenever. Don't wait until the last minute for a hotel reservation though.

The big news is...... we bought a house in Mérida! I know some of you already know this but I wasn't ready to put it up to the whole world until I'd had a chance to tell some friends here in Akumal about it. Also, since the deposit on it just went through yesterday I was jumping the gun a little by telling half the world about it before that. Now I have to find the rest of the money by the beginning of March.

Moving away from those boring details about money and finding it and moving it and getting it to Mexico, arghhhh!

The house is over 100 years old, not ancient in this part of the world but pretty damn old in my world. The walls are over 2 feet thick and made of stone, the ceilings are 20 feet high and still have the old style of beam and mortar, there are two rooms that still have the original pasta tiles. These are local tiles that are made by pressing colored concrete into molds and then baking it in the sun. The tiles are a couple inches thick and the color goes almost all the way through. So, you can polish old tiles and the color comes up and they look even better than new ones.

OK, that's what it has. What it doesn't have is electricity or plumbing that I'd want to use. It hasn't been lived in recently, it was last updated in the 1950's and basically it is a ruin. A really big ruin! Probably it was one wing of a colonial house that used to take up the entire block. You could ride 2 horses abreast down the center hallway. It's in the old center of the city, about 6 blocks from the main plaza.

Instead of doing this all again, I'm just going to give a link to a page I put up about the house when we made the offer. I put some pics of other houses done by the same architect we are using first, mainly so I wouldn't scare my son and friends in the US with the down and gritty shots of the real house right away...scroll on down, the real dirt is at the bottom. Mérida House

Ooooh! There are big things a foot and exciting news coming. But first, I want to prove to you that Mimi and I truly did find the elusive place called Tacos Arabe. The one past the rocket and looking like the Flatiron building in New York but not really. We even found it in the dark the next time, it was even open and we actually ate there.

Considering that it took us 3 trips before we actually got to eat anything, and that those 3 trips probably took up at least an hour and a half of driving time, and that it was tacos we were going to this great effort for, tacos that can be had anywhere in Mexico with some degree of goodness... it was ok but not great.

Here's a pic of our food before we dove into it. There were the namesake tacos arabe which were the best of the lot I thought. They are the ones with the shadow of my head over them. They had grilled onion and slices of chiles and grilled pork I think although it could have been beef after all the sauce and the chile and all. At the right are tacos arrachera which is grilled skirt steak, they were good but nothing special. On the far right, Mimi is about to scarf up tacos arrachera but with cheese melted on them. The plate in front has grilled green onions, cebollas chambray, and with some lime juice I think they were pretty darn good. The drink is a Chelada, lime juice and ice and a beer poured over it. You pick the beer, I had Leon Negra a Yucatan dark beer that I like a lot. That was good too although I like mine with a little less lime juice.

There were 4 sauces, forget that little bowl at the back unless your mouth is made of asbestos. The 3 black bowls had chopped onions and cilantro, a nice spicy red salsa that was hot without eating the skin off your tongue, and fresh cream...there's nothing that doesn't taste good with thick cream on it, come on.

Ignore that pack of Marlboro's, yes we still smoke, yes we will quit one day, no I don't want to discuss it.

The walls are covered with graffiti from happy customers, most of it in spanish but the odd one in english or french or german.

So, we won the treasure hunt and like many things in life the treasure was not as great as you thought it would be when you were searching for it.